CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A power struggle has erupted in the Statehouse pitting Ohio's traditional electric utilities against new independent power producers, as well as consumer, environmental and business groups wary of rate increases.

The outcome will have an impact not only on what consumers will pay for power in the future, but also on the state's future economic development as businesses afraid of rate escalation leave the state or refuse to come to Ohio.

Led by FirstEnergy and American Electric Power, the utilities are pushing lawmakers to create new customer charges to help bankroll old nuclear and certain old coal plants.

Separate legislation authorizing the new charges that would cost customers billions of dollars over the next two decades have been working their way through House and Senate committee hearings in the face of stiff opposition from opponents.

The AEP-led proposal would add as much as $256 million to Ohio electric bills annually until 2040, or nearly $6 billion, according to an analysis by the Ohio Legislative Service Commission, to keep running two Cold War era coal power plants, one of which is in Indiana, that once made electricity solely for the defense industry. No Ohio electric customer could escape the surcharge, which has not been broken out by company.

The FirstEnergy charge would add about $300 million a year to the bills of FirstEnergy customers for at least the next 16 years to keep the company's nuclear power plants out of red ink.

The company says individual bill increases would be limited to 5 percent, subject to periodic review by state regulators. But that cap does not include the cost of "deferrals," that is, putting off collecting all of the money needed until a future time, when the company would add it to rates, with interest.

Opponents are calling the proposed enabling legislation "bailouts" of old, uncompetitive technology that should be allowed to die if it cannot compete.

Jack Gerard, CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, said in a recent editorial board interview that the nuclear plants should be allowed to die if they cannot compete with gas.

API this past week sent a mass mailing to voters living in districts represented by a select group of House members throughout the state. The literature urged voters to call their state representative and tell them "to keep fighting against the FirstEnergy nuclear bailout." The mailing identified the correct state representative and included his or her office phone number.

The utilities and some lawmakers say that keeping coal and nuclear plants -- even if they cannot compete and have to be subsidized -- is a matter of "energy security."

They make that argument despite assurances from high-voltage grid manager PJM Interconnection that the region has nearly 25 percent more power plant capacity than the highest projected demand through mid 2021.

For those who thought Ohio's move to deregulate the industry would prevent such special charges, here's what is driving the old utilities to push the boundaries of deregulation.

The old utility power plants, whether coal or nuclear, are in a fight for survival trying to compete with wind and solar and ultra-efficient gas turbine power plants running on cheap shale gas from the region. They don't own any of the new technologies and unlike private developers who raise capital independently for new power plants, they don't want that kind of risk.

The competition is only going to get tougher. Technology is steadily improving renewables and making them more competitive.

And because shale gas is expected to remain abundant and low-priced for decades, independent developers are rushing to build turbine plants to compete in regional deregulated wholesale markets, including Ohio. There are 11 gas turbine plants either planned, approved or already under construction in Ohio, and dozens more planned in the region.

Independent developers are either building, planning to build or seeking permits from the Ohio Power Siting Board to build 11 large gas turbine power plants in the state, representing an estimated total investment of nearly $9 billion.

Shoring up the old uncompetitive power plants is not the only thing at stake, though. In fact, it may not even be the real issue.

What's actually on the table is whether Ohio will continue toward becoming a truly deregulated state -- where competition sets power prices and where competitors rather than customers pay for new power plants and the upkeep of old plants.

The role of the traditional utilities in that future would be to become delivery-only companies, while offering an auction-based power price that becomes the low-price standard.

And one Ohio lawmaker, Rep. Mark Romanchuk, a Republican from Ontario, near Mansfield, and founder of a manufacturing and machining company, has proposed exactly that.

While the subsidy hearings heated up in late May Romanchuk introduced HB 247 requiring the old utilities not only to sell their power plants but to base power prices solely on wholesale prices. Stripped down delivery rates would be established in separate hearings before state regulators, under Romanchuk's proposal. There would be no "riders" added to those distribution rates.

There were no cosponsors and no hearings set on Romanchuk's legislation until this past week.

HB 247 will have its first hearing this coming Tuesday before the House Public Utilities Committee. Nine supporters, including consumer, small business, agricultural and a manufacturing association jointly sent a letter of support for the legislation on Tuesday to House Speaker Cliff Rosenberger. The hearing was announced the day after.

Whatever the outcome of the current debates, AEP is expected to float new legislation in the fall allowing it to build wind, solar and maybe gas turbines and put the construction costs into long-term rates. That's what regulated utilities did for about 80 years before Ohio opened its electrical borders to competitors in 1999 and allowed customers to shop for the best prices.

AEP began talking about "re-structuring" more than a year ago. That's the new term, say consumer advocates, to describe returning to some sort of regulated arrangement that puts financial risks back on customers and could end competition and cheaper power prices.

FirstEnergy has been even more transparent. Top executive Chuck Jones has been telling analysts since last year that the company wants sure profits of a regulated company and would sell or close its power plants if it cannot get them back under a regulatory umbrella.

to key lawmakers laying out the economic and job benefits of keeping its Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear plants operating -- even if doing so raised monthly bills.

And on Friday morning, Jones made a concerted pitch to a few dozen of the 100 or more elected officials, including lawmakers, invited to attend a private teleconference arranged for legislators and members of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, arguing that shutting down Davis-Besse and Perry would cost more than the subsidy the company is seeking.

The teleconference came as most lawmakers, speaking privately, predicted that the FirstEnergy's legislation -- House Bill 178 and the nearly identical Senate Bill 128 --would not likely even get out of committee over the next few weeks.

One lawmaker, State Rep Bill Seitz, a Cincinnati Republican and chair of the House Public Utilities Committee, weeks ago announced that he saw little or no support for the legislation and cancelled further hearings.

FirstEnergy wants Ohio lawmakers to create "Zero Emission Credits" or ZECs, assign a dollar value to the carbon dioxide they do not produce and charge customers roughly $300 million extra a year, with costs likely to go up over the next 16 years.

The legislation is loosely based on similar legislation approved in New York and Illinois. Independent power producers have filed lawsuits in federal court against those two states over the subsidies. They plan to also sue Ohio if the ZEC legislation is approved.